The PBEye

Lawyers Read: Refugee by Alan Gratz

Need a new book to curl up with as the temperature drops? Looking for effective ways to communicate the impact of your pro bono work and the backgrounds of some of your clients? Check out Refugee by Alan Gratz, which tells the story of three different children, living on different continents, spanning decades of time. Although the characters of this novel are from completely separate worlds, they have “one mission in common: ESCAPE.” Gratz weaves the tales of Josef, a Jewish boy living in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Isabel, a Cuban girl experiencing riots and unrest in 1994, and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy fleeing civil war in 2015, as they embark on dangerous treks in search of safety and refuge. As one enthusiastic reviewer observed, author “does his history homework and then hides it in a total page turner. . . There are explosions, sharks, gunshots, paranoia, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle merchandise, armed robberies, a cute kitten, tear-gas bombs, greased-doorknob pranks, a bar mitzvah, and a bad guy so bad he beheads a child’s stuffed animal.”

While Refugee is a work of historical fiction, the stories of the children depicted are all too familiar to lawyers who work in this space. To hear more about our take on Refugee and the important pro bono work being done to aid immigrants and refugees tune in to our conversation with BJ Jensen of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison*† on the Law Firm Pro Bono Project’s podcast, the Pro Bono Happy Hour.